Sony Will Relaunch PSPgo; Will People Actually Buy It This Time?

The relaunch will likely consist of a new marketing push combined with some tweaks to the product, and, most importantly, a price reduction.

The Go is smaller (and, according to many reviewers, more awkward to control) than the PSP 3000, yet costs $80 more. The biggest difference between the two machines, however, is that the Go has no disc drive for games, running entirely on downloadable content (DLC).

Added portability is great, but not many gamers wanted to pay that premium for what is in other ways a slightly inferior device. If the price cut is big enough, however, PSPgo sales could provide a glimpse of just how comfortable consumers are with DLC.

It clearly has a huge future, but is expected to grow far more slowly than the digital distribution of music did. A DLC-only handheld at a reasonable price would be an interesting test case. So far, the PSPgo hasn't fit that bill.